Letter to the Editor: Academic Freedom on Campus

From an e-mail correspondent:

Professor McAdams,

First, though I doubt you would remember me, I am a 1990 graduate of Marquette’s Political Science Program. . . . Since then I taught for Milwaukee Public Schools as a Middle School teacher for 6 years, but because I went through Army ROTC while at Marquette I was able to switch professions in 1998 to Active Duty. Sadly, the reason for changing was that the day I stepped out of the classroom and into a uniform I doubled my income (though that is a different topic of conversation). To make a long story short, I have since then taught ROTC at UW-Madison (where I received a Masters Degree in Public Affairs) for three years, and am now the Commander of the UW-Stevens Point ROTC Department.

It is for this reason that I am responding to your blog. Having been a student and an Assistant Professor of Military Science at UW-Madison, I was continually struck by the open hostility to ROTC at Madison. I still remember when Donna Shalala was the Chancellor at Madison and brought the entire faculty together to vote on ROTC remaining on campus, fully knowing that as a land grant institution she was mandated to keep ROTC.

The vote was 63% for shutting the ROTC programs at Madison. When I was teaching there, it was not “healthy?” to wear my uniform across campus because of the response I would receive. Additionally, when we tried to put either letters to the editor or advertising in the Cardinal or other campus papers we were always denied access. Then, I would hear back from the cadets that if they wore the uniform to class, other students would make comments on why anyone would ever want to “learn to kill people for a living?”

It was my experience there that the faculty actively educates the underclassmen on how to think about specific subjects, and though this is not universal across the campus, there is no one who would be able to say that the education is not biased. This fact was a steady topic of conversation among our cadets. It is important to note here that my experience was not based solely on hearsay. I personally had faculty approach me and ask derisively “What are you doing here?”

I would like to compare/contrast this to my experience at Marquette and now at UW-Stevens Point. At Marquette, though there were individual students who would on occasion make negative comments, I always felt that the faculty as a whole was either neutral or supportive to cadets in ROTC. At Stevens Point, I have noted a similar attitude.

The reason I wish to bring out this contrast is that your article seems to point towards a certain universal oppression of free speech at Universities, but I would argue that the most damaging incidents occur by the indoctrination of students while they are still forming their outlook on the world by professors whom they trust at specific institutions.

When ideas from any side are dismissed without real debate or analysis because they originate from a suspect source (the government, the Right, ROTC...) then the development of students analytical capacity is stunted. I know that UW-Madison’s leadership believes that it is a bastion for free thought, and that it teaches personal responsibility for the information one accepts as real, the reality may be very different because they do not really see what is going on in the liberal arts classrooms forming the central curriculum of the University. What I saw was the campus wide results. It would be hard to convince me that these students arrived on campus with a predisposition to hating their Army and towards Officership and military service in it. Those ideas are learned and taught.

My conclusion is simple, oppression of free speech is not universal on campuses around the country, but is often most prominent in those places where people would most like to think they are free. UW-Madison is one example of this.

Thank you for the education that you helped to give me at Marquette, and I will continue to read your blog as a fine source of thought provoking informative editorials.

Respectfully,

Jeffrey Kurka
Lieutenant Colonel US Army
Professor of Military Science UW-Stevens Point

We are delighted to hear from a former student, and entirely agree with his observations.

When we blog about intolerance and censorship in academia nationally, and about cases at Marquette, we don’t mean to imply that Marquette is worse than other institutions. Indeed, since Marquette is more conservative than lots of other universities, it’s also more tolerant and open to diverse points of view.

Of course, there are places on campus where politically correct intolerance prevails, but they are pretty much the places (humanities departments, education, victim studies programs) where intolerance prevails throughout academia generally.

Where ROTC is concerned, we have blogged about how anti-ROTC protests have been poorly attended and failed to find a sympathetic audience among administrators or even the usual suspects among student activists.

So while Marquette could be better, it could be worse too.

Sign Petition Supporting ROTC at Marquette

In the face of a planned demonstration by local leftists demanding a shut-down of ROTC at Marquette, Brian Collar of the GOP3.COM blog has set up an online petition supporting the officer training program.

The link to the petition is here.

Of course most conservatives will be happy to sign it, but we think a fair number of liberals will too.

Consider, for example, this comment by a liberal poster on the GOP3.COM blog.

ROTC won’t be shut down and everyone knows it. It gives too much to the school for being there and it’s far too helpful for students who need it.

It’s not the ROTC’s fault that the government is sending soldiers to fight an unjust war. I’m pretty sure it’s Congress’s fault for approving the insane “First Strike” law and not invoking their power to end the war, when ending the stinkin’ war was 99% of the reason anti-war Democrats were elected to congress last year.

That’s the right spirit. Feel free to disagree with the Iraq War if you want, but don’t try to stifle a program that has large benefits for both students and the university.

If you don’t want to serve in the military, by all means don’t join ROTC. But have a little respect for those who do.

ROTC Students Disciplined Over Statements Supporting Program

A scoop by Ryan Alexander at the Campus Tavern blog:

Several Marquette ROTC students have been disciplined over their responses to an anti-ROTC opinion piece in the Marquette Tribune.

According to Alexander:

Apparently this is where several cadets got into trouble with their respective programs, as several cadets wrote viewpoints to the Marquette Tribune in opposition to Robert Graf and many cadets joined an anti-Graf group on thefacebook.com.

A search of the Tribune archives shows that, of the four responses to the anti-ROTC article, three were entirely civil, and one was a bit testy, but certainly not terribly abusive.

Facebook responses were mostly civil, but with a couple that did seem to us to be “out of bounds.” We do not know whether the responses we considered inappropriate came from the ROTC cadets who were disciplined.

This affair is ironic given the following:

In a protest with an unusual number of high-level signatures, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of its five members have fired off a letter assailing a Washington Post cartoon as “beyond tasteless.”

The Tom Toles cartoon, published Sunday, depicts a heavily bandaged soldier in a hospital bed as having lost his arms and legs, while Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in the guise of a doctor, says: “I’m listing your condition as ‘battle hardened.’” Toles said he meant no offense toward American soldiers.

The letter to The Post, signed by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the vice chairman and the service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, said: “We believe you and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to your readers and your paper’s reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who have volunteered to defend this nation, and as a result, have suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds . . .

“While you or some of your readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, we believe you owe the men and women and their families who so selflessly serve our country the decency to not make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices.” The letter, which a reporter obtained from the Pentagon, is being published today.

Is this an example of “do as we say, not as we do” from the military? We have difficulty seeing the difference between objecting to an Op-Ed piece in the Tribune, and to a cartoon in the Washington Post.

Anti-ROTC Leftists Lobby Marquette

From an (apparently) widely circulated e-mail:

Dear Peacemakers,

Please join us at:

Marquette University Alumni Memorial Union, 2nd Floor at 8:45 am, Wed. Dec. 12, 2007

There is a small group of us who have written the Board of Trustees at Marquette University requesting that they keep Marquette Faithful to the Gospel Values and No Longer Host the Departments of Military Science. Our letter to the board is attached. We will be making a personal plea to the Trustees Wed. Dec. 12th at 8:45 on the 2nd floor of MU Union.

There are nine colleges and universities in the area (including UWM) that allow the military to recruit students and offers military office training. However, only one of them, Marquette University, a Catholic Jesuit University, host on campus departments of military science for students from the nine colleges and universities.

The Military Departments of Navy, Army, Marines, Air Force are using Marquette University to draft and train young men and women in values that are contrary to the Christian faith and conscience.

We are asking the Board of Trustees to enter into a discussion of how Marquette be loyal to its Christian values and still have students and the university benefit from the financial incentives, like the eight other colleges and universities do now.

This might seem like a small issue but it has major implications. Marquette University is one of 28 Jesuit Universities and colleges and one of hundreds of Christian colleges that allow the military to teach on campus values that are in direct contradiction to Christian faith.

You may not have been able to join the thousands, including many Jesuit colleges and high schools, represented to protest the values taught about human life and rights at SOA in Fort Benning, but hopefully you can stand in solidarity with us who oppose the teaching of similar values on our college campuses.

Marquette, Keep Faithful to the Gospel
No Longer Host the Departments of Military Science

Peace,

Bob Graf

“Be the change you wish to see in the world” Gandhi
414 379 4162
http://www.nonviolentworm.org/

There was also an attached letter, which we reprint here in full:

December 4, 2007

Dear Marquette University Board of Trustees,

We are a group of Milwaukee area citizens, including students and alumni, who wish to work with you in upholding MU’s “values-centered curriculum,” which is focused on Gospel values. One of the conflicts and contradictions we specifically would like to discuss with you is Marquette’s hosting and condoning of the military science departments: Navy, Army, Marines and Air Force that teach values in direct conflict with the Christian Gospel values espoused at Marquette. For example, the Army states in its manual:

“Your personal values may and probably do extend beyond the Army values, to include such things as political, cultural, or religious beliefs. However, if you’re to be an Army leader and a person of integrity, these values must reinforce, not contradict, Army values.”

On the other hand, the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” teaches:

“The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community.”

We believe that Marquette students, like the students from the eight other universities and colleges that train at the MU departments of military science, should be allowed to have access to military officer training and scholarships. Also, Marquette should be able to open its campus to military recruiting and make available military training, like the other eight area colleges. Thus, MU would still be available for Federal Grants under the Solomon Act.

We simply would like to talk with you about Marquette, like UWM and the other seven colleges, no longer hosting any department of military science. By hosting this military department whose curriculum is not subject to the moral standards of all other MU departments, Marquette is, in effect, endorsing values contrary to the Gospel and teaching of the Church.

We hope for a discussion with you, the Board of Directors, on ways Marquette can be faithful to the Gospel. Will you share a dialog with us on this issue of morality? We can be reached by mail via Patrick Kennelly at 1131 N. 21st, Milwaukee, WI 5320. If possible we would like to begin this conversation with you before Christmas break.

Peace,

Bob Graf

On behalf of:
Mark Peters, Phil Runkel, Daniel Rosenow, Jeanne DeSimone Sieger, Joyce Ellwanger, Don Timmerman, Roberta Thurstin, Sr. Virgine Lawinger, Patrick T. Kennelly, Timothy M. Prendergast, Barbara Aho and Joseph Radoszewski

Happily, this group is not likely to get very far.

As we have observed before, Marquette didn’t drop ROTC during the anti-war hysteria of the late 60s and early 70s. The current administration is clearly to the left of the administration then, but not nearly so far to the left as to kick ROTC off campus.

Indeed, ROTC has extremely wide support among the student body. Even those who would not personally choose to be in the military respect the choices of those who do.

The most striking thing about this is the arrogant certainty that service in the military is immoral. While the Catholic Church has loudly insisted on opposing the current Iraq War, it has admitted that one’s view on the war is a matter of “prudential judgment.” As Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan put it:

Thoughtful voices can be heard on both sides, one maintaining that American initiatives in Iraq are morally licit and meet the classical requirements of a “just war,” the other holding that our military action there is not only a political disaster but clearly immoral. Both sides agree in expressing high regard for our men and women in uniform, who are most exposed to danger, and who are most desirous of the establishment of peace and a return safely home.

Further, military training isn’t just for the Iraq War. It’s for a generation, which may well involve wars which the current “anti-war” crowd will approve.

Happily, these folks represent a fringe position.

Gaggle of Aging Leftists Demonstrates Against Marquette ROTC

Check out a first person account from Brian Collar here.

An interesting observation: Muslim students were not in evidence. We have confirmation from Asmah Mallick, President of the Muslim Student Association, that an announcement of the demonstration was sent to the membership.

But apparently Muslim students at Marquette aren’t that interested in attacking ROTC.

That’s good news.

[Update]

Joe Kastner took photos of both the protest and the counter protest. He left the protest fairly early, however, so things might have looked different 30 or 45 minutes later.

Kastner also reports seeing no Muslim students.

[Further Update]

Milwaukee’s Channel 12 reported on this protest, although the photo on their web site casts doubt on the newsworthiness of the event.

A very small, forlorn group of protesters stood on the steps on the old gym, in which the ROTC is housed.

Marquette Gets High National Rankings

From the Marquette PR people, an e-mail:

Washington Monthly and Princeton Review rank Marquette nationally

The Princeton Review and Washington Monthly magazines recently announced college rankings in which Marquette University ranked among the top universities nationally.

Marquette ranked 48th in the nation in Washington Monthly magazine’s annual College Guide, released this week. Unlike other college ranking systems, the Washington Monthly rates individual schools based on their tangible contributions to the public interest — the degree to which they recruit and graduate low-income students; produce PhDs and research; and encourage students to serve in ROTC, the Peace Corps and other service programs. In topic-specific areas, Marquette ranked seventh nationally in the percentage of students who participate in ROTC and 34th in the country for participation in the Peace Corps.

Marquette has also been named in The Princeton Review’s annual publication “Best 366 Colleges.” Only 15 percent of the four-year colleges in America and two Canadian colleges were chosen for the book. In its profile on Marquette, The Princeton Review described classes as challenging. Students in the profile said faculty are “truly top-notch and care about both teaching and research. Marquette is highly underrated for what we receive. Most professors personally care about the learning experiences of their students and make every effort to offer help or insight inside and outside of class.” The Princeton Review does not rank order the colleges but provides a two-page profile of each school.

Digging into the Princeton Review rankings (which requires a free registration) Marquette is classified on the sub-lists “Class Discussions Rare” (not so good!), “Best Midwest Colleges”, “Colleges with a Conscience.”

The data for all this is apparently a combination of information provided by the institution, and the results of a student survey. Since the student survey does not use any systematic sampling, and since a very small number of students participate, the validity is rather questionable.

For example, under “Academics” and “Students Say,” the favorable comments quoted above are found. But the blurb also comments that:

The few students with leftist political leanings warn that “the professors and the students are incredibly conservative, which can be difficult because the university requires a ton of theology and philosophy credits.”

In fact, Marquette professors are liberal and (sometimes) leftist in the main, and this kind of comment merely reflects the fact that some leftist students get entirely bent out of shape hearing any ideas that they find unorthodox.

The Washington Monthly rankings use an interesting set of criteria to rank schools.

Schools get points for having more students getting Pell Grants (a kind of financial aid reserved for students from low income families). You get points for getting a higher graduation rate than your freshman class SAT/ACT scores would predict -- which could mean the program lacks rigor, or that the school does a good job of engaging students intellectually and helping students who have problems. You get points if the college gets a lot of research grants and graduates a lot of Ph.D. students. You get points if a lot of your students go into the Peace Corps, but to provide a nice ideological balance, you also get points if a lot of your students are in ROTC.

Are any of these ranking valid? Not particularly. Having a lot of Ph.D. programs is associated with having faculty who are top scholars in their field, but also frequently means that teaching undergraduates takes a back seat to research.

Having a lot of students eligible for Pell Grants means that the college is performing a splendid social function of providing upward mobility for low-income kids, but is also likely to mean that a lot of students will need remedial instruction. It may also mean that bright kids will not be challenged the way they would in student bodies made up of kids who have had all the middle-class advantages.

Still . . . Marquette really is one of the better universities in the country. We would rather sit high in the rankings and explain why they don’t mean so much than to be ranked poorly and have what we say dismissed as sour grapes.

We are also not happy about the joy these rankings will bring to top Marquette administrators. Marquette is the fine school it is due to the faculty, the students, the traditions and the alumni, and not due to the current crop of administrators. The place is as good as it is in spite of them, and not because of them.

Marquette Leftists, Muslim Students To Demonstrate Against ROTC

GOP3.COM broke this story.

A coalition of campus leftists and Muslim students will demonstrate against Marquette’s participation in the ROTC program this Friday.

The demonstration has been supported by both the Muslim Students Association and the student group J.U.S.T.I.C.E. which have sent e-mails encouraging participation to their members.

Neither, however, is an “official” sponsor of the event.

Apparently the Casa Maria Catholic Worker organization, and an activist associated with that organization (Patrick Kennelly) originated the idea.

The organizers claim:

We will gather from 12 noon-5 pm on Friday October 26 in front of the Marquette University Department of Military Science at 1508 W. Clybourn Ave -- which recruits and trains young men and women to participate in what many recognize as an immoral, illegal and unjust war in Iraq. We will seek the removal of this military/financial complex from this campus.

The protesters then promise to march around various campus locations, and demand to speak to Fr. Wild.

Marquette resisted demands to kick ROTC off campus during the anti-war hysteria of the late 60s and early 70s. The University is now run by a much more liberal bunch of administrators, but even so we doubt that demonstrations like this -- or even a sustained movement -- could possibly undermine the program.

Brian Collar, of GOP3.COM, promises to organize a counter-protest.

We expect the demonstration to consist of a modest-sized gaggle of the usual suspects. And we don’t know whether the counter protest will even come off.

Supporting the Troops By Working For Their Defeat?

From Jeff Jacoby, an analysis of the claims by the Democrats that they “support the troops.”

Smart people who work hard become successful, John Kerry “joked” last fall, but uneducated sluggards “get stuck in Iraq.” Osama bin Laden is beloved by Muslims for “building schools, building roads, [and] building day-care facilities,” Washington Senator Patty Murray explained in 2002, while Americans only show up to “bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan.” Obama’s Illinois colleague Dick Durbin took to the Senate floor to equate US military interrogators in Guantanamo Bay with genocidal mass-murderers: “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or . . . Pol Pot.”

It goes without saying that many Democrats and liberals take a back seat to no one in their admiration and appreciation of the US military. But there is no denying that a notable current of antimilitary hostility runs through the left as well. Examples are endless: ROTC is banned on elite college campuses. San Francisco bars a historic battleship from its port. Signs at antiwar protests exhort troops to “shoot their officers.” An Ivy League professor prays for “a million Mogadishus.” Michael Moore compares Iraqi insurgents who kill Americans to the Minutemen of Revolutionary New England.

America is a free country, but it is not the Michael Moores or the ROTC-banners or the senatorial loudmouths who keep it free. They merely enjoy the freedom that others are prepared to defend with their lives. It is the men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform to whom we owe our liberty. Surely they deserve better than pious claims of “support” from those who are working for their defeat.

Claims of the Democrats that they “support the troops” are much like their claim to be Christians. It’s not exactly that they are lying. It’s that there is a deep-seated hostility toward the military in the Democratic “base,” and more and more it moves into the mainstream of the party.

Anti-Military Bias at Columbia

From the New York Post, a story of prejudice against the military at Columbia University:

Columbia banned ROTC in 1969, a few months after the height of the famous campus demonstrations against the Vietnam war and all things military. Yet that knee-jerk anti-military attitude doesn’t apply to today’s Columbia students: Two years ago, a student referendum to bring ROTC back to campus passed with 65 percent of the vote.

The faculty is another matter. It took a year after the referendum before the faculty-dominated University Senate would even form a task force to study the issue. After a year of town halls, email exchanges and committee meetings, the committee is deadlocked, 5 to 5, over whether to change the existing policy. The full Senate is set to decide on May 6.

That is the story around a lot of college campuses these days, isn’t it? A student body that is tolerant and politically moderate or conservative, while the faculty are living back in the 60s. Even on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madson an anti-war protest drew a rather anemic crowd.

And some administrators get the point. According to an Associated Press story, Madison activists were demanding that military recruiters be kicked off campus.

UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley told reporters last week that students have the right to protest, but also have the right to join the military. He said he wouldn’t even consider getting rid of military recruiters.

“I would just as soon they not even bother bringing me [the petition],” he said.

Real bummer to be stuck back in the 60s, isn’t it?

Students Collect Soccer Balls For Iraqi Kids

From an e-mail sent to all Arts & Sciences faculty:

The College of Arts and Sciences Student Council is collecting used soccer balls in support of the “Kick For Nick” project. The balls collected will be sent to the children of Iraq in honor of Pfc. Nick Madaras, a soldier who was killed while serving there. While alive, Nick realized what a travesty it was that children in Iraq were literally playing soccer with bags of rocks, so he started a drive to collect soccer balls for the Iraq children in his hometown. Although he is now gone, the drive continues to go on, and, to date, thousands of balls have been sent to Iraq in his name.

The soccer balls will be collected in the College of Arts and Sciences office after spring break from March 25 - April 4th. For more information, please contact muartsandsciencescouncil@gmail.com, or check out http://www.kickfornick.com/.

Somebody might tend to denigrate this effort as small potatoes. After all, groups of Marquette students have been trying to bring socialized medicine to America, or close down the School of the Americas, or fight the evils of rape, racism and coffee that is not “fair traded.”

We, on the other hand, are impressed.

A good motto for students who want to make the world better might be “do something small, but do something that unequivocally will make the world better, even if just a little bit.”

The “social justice” crowd at Marquette, in contrast, is likely to do things that either will have no effect (because the lack the political power to get what they want) or make the world worse (because they are promoting things they don’t understand, but which make them feel good).

Is this campaign an endorsement of the Iraq War? Logically no, one can try to improve the lot of Iraqi kids while still wanting U.S. troops out of that country.

But honoring a fallen American soldier puts a huge distance between these students and the leftists who want ROTC off the Marquette campus. Moral clarity on issues like this must start with an appreciation of the honor and patriotism of the troops.

Hatred of the Military: No Peace for Students

From the Los Angeles Times, an account of how leftist teachers in the Los Angeles area are attacking Junior ROTC, sometimes to the point of personal harassment of students enrolled in the program.

First Sgt. Otto Harrington — tall, muscular, his head cleanshaven — has soldiered through battles in Bosnia, Kuwait and Somalia. He has patrolled Korea’s DMZ.

None of that prepared him, though, for the attacks he has faced as senior teacher in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, where students and teachers have launched a crusade against military recruiting and JROTC.

Harrington blames their campaign for cutting the number of cadets at Roosevelt by 43% in four years, from 286 to 162. Some teachers urge students not to sign up for JROTC, he said, and have worked to end involuntarily placement in the program.

“They seem to think I’m some evil, horrible soldier down here trying to sacrifice our kids to Iraq,” Harrington said in describing the increasing tensions on the Eastside campus.

The program’s critics see JROTC as a Trojan horse targeting students in low-income minority schools with high dropout rates. “We are a juicy target,” said Roosevelt social studies teacher Jorge Lopez.

At Roosevelt and other schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the anti-JROTC movement has helped drive a 24% drop in enrollment since 2003-04, Harrington and his critics said. The decline runs counter to enrollment nationwide, which grew 8% to 486,594 cadets between 2001 and 2006, fueled by a 57% jump in federal funding, according to the Department of Defense.

This propaganda clearly has had an effect on students.

Roosevelt 11th-grader Jesse Flores said that as recently as his freshman year, students didn’t think less of kids for being in JROTC; some even stopped cadets to admire ribbons and medals pinned to their uniforms. “Now,” Jesse said, “everyone says JROTC is bad.”

Many teachers are openly hostile toward JROTC, Jesse said, and some wear T-shirts that say “A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind.”

Arlene Inouye, a speech therapist formerly at Roosevelt, said she thinks anti-military advocacy by teachers is a counterbalance to a strong military presence on campus. She said she once counted 14 recruiters approaching lunchtime crowds of students in Roosevelt’s quad, handing out “Join the Army” book covers and promising adventure, travel and money for college.

In 2003, concerned that students weren’t hearing the other side, she founded the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools. The group has spread to 50 Los Angeles-area schools, providing member teachers with literature, speakers, films and books.

Nearly two dozen teachers have also shown the films “Arlington West,” put out by Veterans for Peace, and “The Ground Truth,” a documentary in which veterans condemn the war in Iraq and their treatment by the military on their return home.

Lopez, the social studies teacher, keeps a stack of glossy brochures propped on his chalkboard titled “Don’t Die in a Dead-End Job! Information for Young People Considering the Military” that show a soldier saluting flag-draped coffins. Prominent on his wall is a poster called “Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agreement.”

“I want to see more Latinos go to college,” Lopez said.

Of course, one of the best ways for young people from poor families to go to college is with the financial aid that the military offers. But Lopez, obviously, has a rather different agenda.

The students in the program, unlike the leftist activists, like the program.

“For some students, the biggest reason to come to school is for JROTC,” said Harrington, noting that his students often come in at 6:30 a.m. even when they are on vacation.

Daniel Segura, a soft-spoken 16-year-old with a mop of brown hair and an easy smile, is one of them. He said his grades spiraled after his father died of diabetes two years ago. “I felt there was no point,” he said.

He started ditching class to go to the Santa Monica Pier and failed half his classes. Urged by a counselor to enroll in JROTC, he was at first resistant and defiant during class time. Harrington told him not to attend the program, then agreed to give him another chance if he followed the rules.

Slowly, Harrington gave Daniel more responsibility, putting him on the flag and armed drill teams and on JROTC’s courtesy patrol, which helps translate for parents at teacher conferences.

Hoping to be named to the JROTC staff and earn more responsibility, Daniel said, he plans to pass all his classes this semester and is getting a B in English.

Roosevelt students tell him he is being brainwashed to go into the Army, but he said he thinks they don’t understand what the program really is. It has taught him leadership and discipline, he said, and he has thrived on its boundaries and rules.

In a bewildering school with nearly 5,000 students, JROTC has been a beacon, a place to belong.

“JROTC made me try again,” he said. Several JROTC cadets describe feeling as if they are under hostile fire from anti-military teachers.

Last year, Jesse, the 11th-grader, a master sergeant and JROTC flag detail commander, was the only student wearing a JROTC uniform in Martha Guerrero’s first-period world history class. He said that Guerrero, who often wears a “War is not the answer” T-shirt and has a flag of the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara hanging in her classroom, sometimes asked him pointed questions in the middle of class.

“Jesse, are you going to go to Iraq and die?” she asked. “Why are you wearing a uniform? Aren’t you embarrassed?” Jesse said he felt singled out by the question and told his JROTC instructor about it.

Angered by what he saw as bullying of his student, he confronted Guerrero, who apologized to Jesse. She said she wasn’t harassing the student. “I just tell them things I know are right or wrong. I stand against war, against JROTC.”

But unfortunately, she’s not tolerant of students who disagree with her.

The irony here is huge. These are the leftists who think that teenagers can make their own decisions about having sex, and that teenage girls are quite mature enough to decide whether to have an abortion, but they don’t trust students to make up their own minds about the military.

Why Was Provost Madeline Wake Fired?

One thing we have to admit right up front: we don’t actually know.

We do know perfectly well about a long list of mistakes and blunders Wake made, and about the view among faculty that she simply wasn’t “up to” the task of running the academic side of a major university. But what actually provoked Fr. Wild (with perhaps some prodding from trustees and donors) to actually let her go? We can’t be sure, but we know the sources of discontent were multiple and deep.

A Nursing Dean as Provost

Particularly among the Arts & Science faculty, it’s believed that Wake suffers from the lack of a background in the humanities, social sciences or natural sciences.

If this sounds like an irrational prejudice, the reality is that Wake has given a lot of evidence that she doesn’t “get it” where a liberal education (the sort that any Jesuit university aims to provide) is concerned.

Consider, for example, a comment she made at a March 7, 2003 meeting of the Core Curriculum Review Committee. In the words of the person writing the minutes:

Provost Wake stated that as faculty member of the core curriculum committee in 1993, she experienced tension between Liberal Arts and Professional Education. With Phil & Theo, baccalaureate graduates aren’t prepared to continue doing work in those areas, but in clinic lab science and business graduates have a profession upon graduating.

The honing of professional knowledge, skills and dispositions is mandatory.

These minutes were circulated by faculty members who noticed this passage, and took severe exception. You don’t dis philosophy and theology in a Jesuit university!

Other faculty point to the lack of people with mainstream academic credentials on Wake’s staff, and even her own somewhat suspect “Ph.D. with a major in urban education and a minor in nursing” from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Worse, Wake seems to be an enthusiastic supporter of something called “outcomes assessment.” The notion behind “outcomes assessment” is that a university has to be able to prove that its students learn something. The fact that they write papers and exams that get passing grades is not considered enough proof. After all, faculty already grade students, so there is no bureaucratic busy-work involved in that. So you have to invent a procedure that does keep some bureaucrats busy.

The policy has been vastly unpopular with the faculty, with our own Op-Ed in the Tribune in the fall of 2002, and our colleague Lowell Barrington’s essay in Academe being only the tip of the iceberg.

Supposedly, this policy has been forced on Marquette by the North Central Association, which could theoretically withhold accreditation if the University fails to jump through its hoops. (In reality, any institution of Marquette’s standing that faced down the bureaucrats would probably win.)

The problem is that Wake seemed to like and enthusiastically support the idea.

Perhaps this was a product of her nursing background. After all, you can in fact make a list of things that a well-trained RN should be able to do, and you can meaningfully test to see whether they can do those things.

In the liberal arts, quite obviously, it doesn’t work out nearly so neatly.

Worse than that, the initial attempt at assessment was blundered. Not only was it a bad idea to begin with, the North Central Association came in and said, in effect, “you’ve been doing it all wrong!”

Not “The Decider”

One chronic problem is Wake’s inability to make decisions. Issues seem to sit on her desk for weeks or months.

One example affects the Political Science department right now. We last year got approval to hire a faculty member specializing in national security. As one of our colleagues pointed out, America is at war right now, and we have a lot of ROTC students champing at the bit to take a political science course in the subject.

We interviewed job candidates last year, and failed to find one with whom we were sufficiently impressed. We decided not to hire anybody, but rather to come back and try again this year.

But we have yet to get approval to hire for that position this year. Like a lot of things, the issue sits on Wake’s desk. And it’s getting late. To recruit effectively, we need to get a notice of the job opening to the American Political Science Association (which will make it known to literally everybody in the country seeking a job in the field).

The perverse incentives this sort of behavior creates are obvious. Rather than holding out for somebody “really good,” departments would be well-advised to hire whoever is available. If you fail to hire you may lose the position.

Other Issues

A variety of other issues, some of them small considered in isolation, but which in the aggregate produced an image of fecklessness may have played a part. There was, for example, a mistake last year in the amount of financial aid offered to entering freshmen – a million dollars more than had been budgeted was offered. The incident resulted in Financial Aid Director Daniel Goyette leaving the university, but the general view is that Wake was at least somewhat at fault.

Wake cancelled the South Africa program, and then, in response to the uproar the decision created, ordered it reinstated.

And this happened after Marquette announced the success of a 300+ million dollar fundraising effort. What, after all, is the purpose of raising all that money if it doesn’t allow you to maintain popular and worthwhile programs?

Wake (and her staff) have a history of sending out ill-advised e-mails to faculty. One, in 2004, advised faculty to schedule a quiz or assignment on St. Patrick’s day to discourage student drinking. Further, faculty were told to promote the cause by “Not making jokes about drinking on St. Patrick’s Day.”

In January 2003, a memo went out signed by both Wake and Senior Vice President Greg Kliebhan telling faculty not to give any information about “a myriad of topics, e.g., your job, your co-workers, financial or other data, University policy” without checking with University administrators.

The policy had to be “clarified” within 24 hours of being issued.

Wake and the “Business Side” of the University

Most of this probably has only a tangential connection with Wake’s firing, although the cumulative effect of a constant series of blunders and a continual image of ineptness could have been important.

But the key factor in Wake’s firing may have been the discontent of people on the “business side” of the University, and particularly Greg Kliebhan, the fellow who heads that part of the Marquette bureaucracy.

Now, a key point: it is the job of the Provost to do battle with people on the business side of the University administration. Since the culture of the institution was changed by late and unlamented President Albert J. DiUlio, the business side of the University has been highly bureaucratic, rigid and quite frequently arrogant toward the “academic side.”

But if it is the Provost’s job to do battle with the business side bureaucrats, it is also the Provost’s job to win those battles. Wake never fought those battles particularly well, but it appears she has lost out anyway.

Coming to a Climax

As recently as a few weeks ago, Marquette President Fr. Robert Wild appeared to firmly support Wake. But discontent bubbled up, reaching top university officials, donors and trustees. Apparently, Wild finally decided he had to move.

The fact that the University is embarking on a new major fundraising effort may have contributed. Wake simply did not seem effective as the public face of Marquette – as somebody who could sell a vision to people who might write very large checks.

So the ax fell.

A Final Irony

What is so unfortunate about all this is that Madeline Wake is a very nice person, and she cares about Marquette. She has served the University for 30 years. In the long historical perspective, her 25 years in the Nursing School count for a lot more than her five unfortunate years as Provost.

We blame Wild, who promoted her to Provost, more than we blame Wake.

And we wish her well.

More: Keeping Tabs on Student Government

We recently blogged about student blogger Joseph Schuster and his resolve to hold student government accountable by bringing some light to the rather opaque subject.

After a brief spell of blogging for the Marquette Tribune, Schuster is back at his old blog, The MUSG Disconnect.

Why? Because the Tribune refused to publish (on his Tribune blog, not in the paper) a piece saying that Marquette University Student Government is “unnecessary.” That the student body would be better off without it.

What heresy!

A Tribune editor called this “not constructive” and spiked it.

Just what did Schuster say that was so bad? Here are the first few paragraphs.

As I was walking through campus today, I had a most horrible thought, what would Marquette University be like without MUSG?

As I looked around with this thought in my mind, the entire campus began to crumble before me. I saw buildings, never getting built. Sports teams never reaching the levels they are at. Academics not being what they are, and there just are not as many students as we have today.

Actually, it would be the exact same place that it is today. The administration and staff at Marquette take care of everything. MUSG just takes up space and resources. This year, MUSG’s revenue, according to their budget was $447,700. The majority of this money was raised through the student activity fee. Now how much of that $447,700goes back to the students through the student organization allocations? Only $128,500.

Now just think, if we didn’t have MUSG taking their cut of that $447,700 and doing whatever it is that they do (we are still trying very hard to figure that out), then students could put all that money, specifically where they want it. According to the budget $3,000 gets spend on MUSG advertising. I guess they have to convince people to join them.

Schuster also revealed some interesting data about how MUSG allocates its funds.

As most probably know, MUSG (mis)allocates the student activity fee among student organizations. Recently 2 of the organizations that received a fairly generous portion of the activity fee demonstrated against the Marquette ROTC, because apparently, soldiers are being trained for the “unjust war in Iraq.”

The two student groups that were supporters of this event (through encouraging members to attend) were the Muslim Student Association and the group known as J.U.S.T.I.C.E. (An acronym meaning liberal student organization). Information about the specific s of the demonstration can be found on the Marquette Warrior Blog.

But the reason that I feel a need to mention this protest on a blog devoted to MUSG is because in period 2, MUSG gave JUSTICE, $3,084.00, see MUSG’s SOA allocations here the exact amount that they requested. Now just to let you know how hard it is to get the exact amount that you request from MUSG, in the last period, only 17.6% of events received the funding level which they requested. So either the JUSTICE application was quite good, or MUSG has a special heart for the leftist organization.

It’s the latter, obviously. J.U.S.T.I.C.E. is a leftist student organization that represents, with unerring fidelity, the political agenda of the University Ministry.

And MUSG is pretty much under the thumb of bureaucrats in the Office of Student Development. Since the University Ministry and OSD think the same way and work hand-in-hand on projects of leftist indoctrination, it’s not surprising that MUSG funds the organization generously.

Look for more from Schuster.

Yes, We Will Call You Unpatriotic

Via Badger Blogger, an account of how the city of San Francisco has again expressed its contempt for the U.S. military.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sep. 24, 2007 (KGO) - New York said “yes,” but we said “no.” Why were the U.S. Marines denied permission to film a recruiting commercial on the streets of San Francisco?

San Francisco is, once again, the center of a controversy over how city leaders treat the U.S. military. This time, it involves an elite group of Marines who wanted to film a recruitment commercial in San Francisco on the anniversary of 9/11.

The tension has been building in the two weeks since the city turned away members of the Silent Drill Platoon, and it boiled over Monday afternoon at a meeting of the San Francisco Film Commission.

The U.S. Marine Silent Drill Platoon performed Monday morning in New York’s Times Square. They filmed part of a recruitment commercial through the start of the morning rush hour -- something they could not do in San Francisco on the anniversary of 9/11.

“It’s insulting, it’s demeaning. This woman is going to insult these young heroes by just arbitrarily saying, ‘no, you’re not going to film any Marines on California Street,’” said Captain Greg Corrales of the SFPD Traffic Bureau.

Captain Greg Corrales commands the police traffic bureau that works with crews shooting commercials, TV shows and movies in the city. He’s also a Marine veteran and his son is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq.

He says Film Commission Executive Director Stefanie Coyote would only allow the Marine’s production crew to film on California Street if there were no Marines in the picture. They wound up filming the empty street and will have to superimpose the Marines later.

“Ms. Coyote’s politics blinded her to her duty as the director of the Film Commission and as a responsible citizen,” said Captain Corrales.

We asked Stefanie Coyote why they’re not allowing the Marines to shoot on California Street. She wouldn’t answer our questions.

At today’s Film Commission meeting, she said she wouldn’t let the Marines film because of rush hour.

“Traffic control was the issue,” explained Stefanie Coyote.

However, the Marines would have just shut down one lane of California Street for a few minutes at a time, and Captain Corrales points out the Film Commission often approves shoots for rush hour.

“If they want to get the job done, they find a way to get it done,” said Captain Corrales.

“The city of San Francisco made a statement saying, ‘we don’t like the war’ by shutting down the troops. I don’t think that was the right thing to do,” explained Eric Snyder, a U.S. Marine.

“I wish to hell she would leave her politics at home and take care of the city business and the bridge business on an even keel basis,” said Mike Paige, a Korea veteran.

Captain Corrales and several other Marine veterans came to the Film Commission Monday afternoon. They see this as just the latest insult along with the city blocking the USS Iowa from docking here, banning the junior ROTC from high schools, and trying to ban the yearly Blue Angels air show.

“This -- a slap in the face of every veteran and every parent of men and women who are doing their duty -- is shameful,” said Captain Corrales.

The Marines we spoke with also make the point that the city allows street demonstrations, anti-war protests and other events which snarl traffic, such as Critical Mass. They still don’t understand why the Marines got turned away.

Letter to the Editor: On the Culture Wars

A Letter to the Editor from a former student of ours:

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I have long maintained that the “Culture Wars” within Western Society are gravely overstated. That they matter much more to the handful of people on the far right and far left than they do the great majority of people.

While most people do have views on these issues and will express them given the chance, most people don’t let it dictate to their entire view of politics. For a simple example, look at Wisconsin where the Gay Marriage amendment passed despite Democrats taking the highest profile of contested seats (Governor, 8th Congressional District are the ones that people out in DC noticed). People are willing to express their views on these issues and to vote upon them, but aren’t so politically exorcized as to view these issues as the centerpiece of a political “war” that must be fought with the enthusiasm of a scorched-Earth campaign.

Quite simply, there are many people who usually vote Democratic who fall the opposite side expected in these issues and vice versa. There are Democrats who have plenty of children and oppose Gay Marriage, there are Republicans who have one or no children and could care less whether or not gays get married.

I suppose the reason I feel that the culture wars are truly overblown is that most everyone has friends that they disagree on these issues with. If this were truly a war of two Western cultures, this wouldn’t be possible. There are people who truly view this as a war and behave as this is a war with a distinct enemy that must be isolated and defeated. They live this out by isolating and shunning individuals who disagree with them on these wedge issues. However, these people do this because they’re jerks rather than being warriors, in a true sense. If they didn’t have the issues of abortion, gay marriage, etc. to inflate their own importance and to judge others upon, they’d find other ways to do so.

The vast majority of people in our American culture are fine with those who disagree with them, even on issues that rouse great passion. Because of that, I don’t see an American culture at war with itself. Do I wish that more people were supportive of Gay Marriage? Yes. Do I wish that some people would have more on their mind when entering the ballot box than abortion? Yes. However, there’s a vast world of difference between wishing that more people agreed with your own views (which is something everyone does) and feeling that there is a war to be won and that those who disagree are your enemy. At the end of the day I’m still able to hang out with people whose only determination at the polls is whether or not a candidate passed a single-issue litmus test. I’m able to have a drink with people who feel that homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle choice, and they’re able to do so with me.

This is not because there has been some bizarre cease-fire zone in this war at the bars and local hangouts in Washington, DC or Milwaukee. It’s because there isn’t a real war to start with.

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Response:

This letter is doubtless a laudable expression of tolerance, but unfortunately not everybody is so tolerant.

Just what are Christians to think when Federal judges try to take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance?

And how are Christians to react when a “diversity” curriculum attempts to indoctrinate children with the view that, not only is homosexuality normal and healthy, but that anybody who disagrees with this is a bigot?

And how are people supposed to react when the San Francisco school board bans Junior ROTC in the schools? Especially, how are the kids who are having what they consider a great opportunity taken away from them because of the political bent of a leftist school board supposed to react?

Preaching tolerance is fine. But it’s not very impressive when there is so much intolerance.

Further, telling people they should think about something besides abortion looks, quite frankly, like a tactic used by abortion supporters to put down people who oppose abortion. Remember, if abortion really is the murder of millions of innocent babies, it’s an issue that people ought to think about quite a lot.

Saying people ought to “think about something else” makes sense only if one is fine with abortion.

Marquette Tribute Following the Lead of The Warrior?

Both The Marquette Tribune and The Warrior came out yesterday.

The striking thing: the Tribune seems to be following the lead of The Warrior in putting a feature story on the front page, above the fold.

And in full color.

The Warrior has done this for several issues now.

The Warrior has a long feature, written by Diana Sroka, about a Marquette sophomore who is an unwed mother, struggling with the demands of school, working long hours and caring for her 2-year-old daughter.

The Tribune likewise ran a story, written by Phil Caruso, about Marquette ROTC students in their Field Training Exercise at Fort McCoy. It, like the Warrior feature, has large color photos splashed all over.

We haven’t asked the Tribune staff whether they are following the lead of the Warrior. We doubt that they have any such explicit policy, and the feature story they ran yesterday may be partly the result of a week that has been slow for real news. But we wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the Tribune staff has noticed the success of the Warrior formula.

The Warrior, by the way, seems to get better and better. The long-term success of any “alternative” student paper is always in doubt. But some of them do get enough visibility, credibility and advertiser base to become viable long-term fixtures of campus life.

Founded explicitly as a conservative alternative to the liberal Tribune, The Warrior has leaned to the right (featurning columnists like Daniel Suhr and Robert Fafinski), but also allowed considerable diversity of opinion (such as an anti-concealed carry essay by Mike Rudzinski and a Letter to the Editor defending heretical theologian Dan Maguire’s right to teach at Marquette, both in the current issue).

Of course, the paper has a fair amount of non-ideological news of interest to students, cultural coverage.

The question is: when the current cadre of staffers leaves Marquette, will the paper be an attractive enough project to attract new blood? That’s becoming more likely with each issue.

Marquette Alumnus Is a Warrior

From a Nashville paper, an account of a Marquette alum who is a soldier.

John Krenson is a man of the cloth, a soldier of war, a Gospel preacher, a defender of the Iraq invasion.

Krenson, 42, is an ordained deacon at Catholic Cathedral of the Incarnation and a major in the Tennessee Army National Guard. He has led parish prayers in Nashville and endured rocket fire in Afghanistan.

Rarely does the conflict of war and peace unfold so dramatically in one soul. Krenson admits it’s a struggle, but it forces him to think with candor. He decided to write a book declaring his convictions as minister, soldier and family man — and why we must attain victory in Iraq.

He signs copies of “Crossfire: A Time for Peace, War & Love” at 10 a.m. Sept. 16 at St. Mary’s Bookstore.

Krenson was raised in a socially active Catholic household in Nashville. A high school year in Finland, 1980-81, was pivotal. He saw Soviet Russia, met European students facing compulsory military service and returned home eager to serve his country. At Marquette University, he did ROTC training.

His short book confronts military strategy and holy teaching. In Scripture, Jesus is Prince of Peace. But Krenson finds images of necessary aggression there in the name of peace — Jesus angrily driving people out of the temple, St. Paul praising soldiers who protect others from harm.

“Jesus lived the ideal, but he wasn’t married either; does that mean we shouldn’t be married? He didn’t kill anyone; does that mean we shouldn’t defend ourselves?” Krenson says.

Planned Parenthood: Calling its Opponents “Terrorists”

Via Modern Commentaries, an account of Planned Parenthood, on their web site, label a broad variety of anti-abortion organizations as “Terrorists and Extremist Organizations.”

What are these organizations doing to be labeled “terrorist” or “extremist?”

On the page where 15 anti-abortion organizations are listed, we find they use:

• Conventions/meetings — training sessions and seminars
• Crisis pregnancy counseling/centers
• Litigation
• Outreach programs for youth
• Prayer and worship demonstrations
• Publications
• Action alerts, “get-out-the-vote” mailings, and phone calls
• Grassroots organizing
• Public misinformation campaigns [of course, what is “misinformation” is a matter of opinion]
• Boycotts
• Picketing at clinics

Wow! No democracy can allow stuff like that.

More controversial is “sidewalk counseling,” in which four of the listed groups engage. Women entering abortion clinics are approached and urged not to abort their babies. Planned Parenthood calls this “harassment,” but it is hard to see how this is worse than a picket line that a union might set up against a business with which it has a disagreement. Planned Parenthood liberals have uttered not a peep about this.

Somewhat more controversial is “clinic blockades” in which three of the 15 groups engage.

This, most certainly, is a form of nonviolent civil disobedience, much like sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in the early 60s, or “sit down strikes” supporting unionization in auto factories in the 30s.

The protestors are willing to accept the penalty for disobeying the law.

Most controversial, of course, is a tiny fringe of anti-abortion activists who are willing to use violence. Some have burned abortion clinics -- a tactic we deplore, but find no worse than 60s campus anti-war activists who burned ROTC buildings. Even worse is actual violence against persons, engaged in by only the most minuscule proportion of the anti-abortion movement. This few really can be called “terrorists,” but none of the 15 anti-abortion groups listed on the Planned Parenthood site promote or encourage this.

As is too typical, the liberals in Planned Parenthood can’t accept that people who disagree with them have the same rights as their friends and allies do. Even very ordinary political activity is called “terrorism” when their adversaries do it, and the sorts of civil disobedience they applaud coming from the left they condemn coming from the right.

Ward Churchill Speaking Tour

Matt Labash is clearly a disciple of Tom Wolfe. When he reports on Ward Churchill, the last thing he’s going to do is get exercised about Churchill’s outrageous statements. Rather, he’s interested in the cultural ambiance that surrounds the racist professor from Colorado.

Having headed the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement (AIM) for several decades, having boasted of his affiliation with the Black Panthers and his days teaching bomb-making to the Weathermen, he’s more than just an angry professor. He’s a nostalgia ride at the Aging Radical Theme Park. Pay ten bucks, and it’s like watching your parents’ college yearbooks transubstantiated into flesh and blood. Pre-controversy, Churchill already did about three speaking gigs a month. But since, the number of invitations has tripled, and his fee, when he’s not doing pro-bono work, is at five grand plus expenses.

And further:

IN THE BERKELEY STUDENT UNION the next afternoon, it’s the usual fun and games, as Churchill speaks on a panel about academic freedom. Just outside the hall, a concessions kiosk does brisk business, pushing Churchill books and T-shirts with inscriptions such as “My heroes have always killed cowboys.” Revolutionary Worker Communist newspapers are passed around among students, while McCarthyism is decried. During the Q&A after Churchill and several other professors speak, he is given a tongue-bath. One interrogator actually asks him to sign her term paper, which was written about the Churchill saga.

Thus does America reward its extremists and crackpots, with semi-lucrative speaking tours and also with cultural irrelevance.

Like the Columbia professors who are still fighting sixties battles against ROTC they are comfortable but as old-fashioned as a lava lamp or love beads.

Marquette’s “Sniper” Fiasco: Ending with a Roar, a Whimper or a Shrug?

When Marquette closed down a fundraising table the College Republicans had set up for the “Adopt a Sniper” program, a media firestorm followed.

The College Republicans made the Administration an offer to (in the words of the organization’s Chairman) “put this ‘Support Our Troops’ table disagreement behind us.” Specifically, the College Republicans proposed to donate $300 to the American Legion’s Operation Airtime, with Marquette matching the donation.

Today, several Marquette officials, two officers of the College Republicans and the organization’s Faculty Advisor met to consider the situation.

Marquette insisted that the University does not oppose the U.S. military nor object to helping the troops, pointing, for example, to the ROTC programs on campus and other approved fundraisers in support of America’s soldiers.

In response to the Republican’s request for a $300 donation to the American Legion, Marquette gave a flat “no,” claiming difficulty using University money to fund a private charity. They did, however, suggest that the Republicans might host a fundraiser for the group, and promised a strong University effort to help publicize the event.

The real value of such publicity could easily exceed $300.

The most contentious issue was who was at fault for the “Sniper” fiasco. Marquette was willing to say that there was blame to be assigned on both sides.

There was certainly some raggedness on the part of the College Republicans, who failed to specifically apply for permission to raise money for the sniper’s group, and only asked for permission for a “Support the Troops” fundraiser.

College Republican Chairman Brandon Henak explained that when the application was submitted, several different organizations were under consideration, and the group only settled on the “Sniper” organization later.

But in our view, Marquette bears primary responsibility for the fiasco.

The Administration had over 24 hours between the time the display was shut down a bit before noon on Monday (January 31), and Tuesday afternoon when the Administration informed the College Republicans that they would not be allowed restore their fundraising table at the Union. A bit of research on the web would have shown that the sniper’s group was a legitimate one. A bit of consultation outside the ranks of administrators would have revealed that the decision would be hard to defend.

Instead of a careful reconsideration of the hasty Monday action, “group think” seemed to prevail as Marquette administrators solidified behind the earlier action.

Even today, University officials insisted that closing down the table was the right thing to do. That bodes ill for the future.